Need for homelessness services high in ACT

65 out of every 10,000 people in the ACT were homeless during the last financial year.

ABC News

The latest snapshot on homelessness services shows the ACT has the second highest proportion of people accessing support in the country.

The report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) shows, nationally, 244,000 Australians used homelessness services in the past financial year - a 3 per cent increase in one year.

The report also shows 65 out of every 10,000 people in the ACT were homeless during the last financial year.

ACT Council of Social Service director Susan Helyar says housing affordability is to blame.

"For people who are in low-wage jobs, or in part-time work, or on income support, it's impossible to find housing that's affordable, so the homelessness figures reflect that," she said.

"Supply of housing is the responsibility of not only government, it's also of the housing market and the private sector.

"We need a lot more resources put into building and creating housing that is diverse, that is affordable, that is small and modest anact homeless ONLINEd that can meet the needs of people who live here."

Ms Helyar says the 59 per cent of people seeking help from support services are women.

"For women who have children, for young women, for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, for older women and for women leaving care services, the biggest driver of their causes of homelessness are domestic violence and sexual assault and sexual abuse," she said.

"Men seek assistance as well, but their causes are more related to coming out of some kind of care arrangement, like mental illness, or [having] been in the corrections system, or in the disability system, or that they have issues around substance abuse, or mental health problems."

Nationally, almost 49,000 women were assisted as a result of domestic violence, with these cases involving around 24,000 children.